The wind from Mia tore Arthur away from the trajectory he had chosen.
For a brief instant, his body was thrown sideways with a violence that seemed to shatter the desperate calculation his mind had made. The sword in his hand trembled, his arm burned, and the distance between him and Mia began to widen at the same moment the Zaraqnil's arachnid leg continued descending toward her.
Arthur saw everything.
He saw Ayame on the opposite side.
He saw the colossal shadow above Mia.
He saw her lips still moving without enough sound to cross the chaos.
And then—
The world died.
There was no explosion.
No flash.
No warning.
Sound simply disappeared.
The dust froze in the air. Fragments of stone hung suspended like shattered stars. Mia's wind stopped around him in invisible lines, still pressing against his arm but advancing no further. The Zaraqnil's leg remained above her, motionless, heavy, terrifying, halted only moments before completing its descent.
Arthur did not breathe.
Or maybe he had.
He no longer knew.
His chest was trapped between impulse and despair, as if his own body had been abandoned inside a second that refused to end.
— It is not a pause.
The voice came from behind him.
Calm.
But different.
Closer than ever before.
Arthur tried to turn.
He could not.
His body remained trapped, still being thrown sideways by the force of Mia's magic. Only his consciousness seemed free enough to perceive the impossible.
— It is deceleration, — the voice continued. — So profound that, to you, it appears as though everything has stopped.
Arthur forced his eyes forward.
Ahead of him, between the motionless dust and the dead light of the chamber, stood a silhouette.
Golden.
Faint.
Unstable.
It resembled the outline of a man, but not entirely. The body was merely a luminous shape, as if it existed through insistence rather than matter. The golden glow faltered at the edges, breaking apart into tiny particles that dissolved before reaching the ground. No facial features could be seen. No line was clear enough.
But the hair was.
Long.
White.
Thick.
Falling forward and to the sides like an ancient curtain, hiding nearly everything that should have existed above the shoulders. It was not the appearance of a giant. Not an immense divinity occupying the entire hall. It was a figure of human size, yet it carried a presence so ancient that the space around it seemed too small to contain it.
Arthur recognized the feeling before he recognized the voice.
— You…
The silhouette did not move.
— I wish our next meeting had been different.
Arthur felt the rage rising before the words even formed.
— Then let me go.
The answer did not come immediately.
The silence within that deceleration was so deep it seemed crushing.
— Arthur…
— LET ME GO! — he tried to scream, but his voice did not emerge as sound. It came torn apart, trapped inside his own consciousness. — I have to reach her!
The silhouette remained before him.
— Mia needs to die.
The sentence carried no cruelty.
And perhaps that made it hurt even more.
Arthur felt something inside him crack.
Not because he accepted it.
But because every part of him rejected it.
— Shut up.
— Just like you, just like me… she carries the Creator's Mark.
Arthur's eyes widened.
The Zaraqnil's leg remained suspended above Mia.
Mia was still looking at him.
Her lips still slightly parted.
— She has one mark, — said the silhouette. — You carry two. I carry one. These marks are not merely symbols. They are destinies. Fixed points that pull our existences toward what must happen.
— I don't care.
— She was already torn away from death once.
Arthur felt his throat tighten.
— I SAID I DON'T CARE!
The silhouette tilted its head slightly.
— This time, she cannot be saved.
The rage came like fire.
But it was not fire.
It was blue.
Deep.
Cruel.
Arthur tried to move his arm.
Nothing.
He tried to move his fingers.
Nothing.
He tried to turn his neck.
Nothing.
His body was trapped inside an invisible ocean, denser than stone, heavier than any gravity he had ever endured.
— Can you save her? — Arthur asked, his mental voice trembling with desperation. — If you can do this, if you can speak to me, if you can slow everything down… then save her!
— I cannot.
— WHY?!
For the first time, the silence of the silhouette seemed to carry pain.
— Because I cannot interact with anything physical. My body was destroyed. Deteriorated. My existence nearly vanished when I used what remained of myself at the beginning of the war against the shadows.
Arthur froze.
War against the shadows.
The words sank too deeply.
— What… do you mean by the beginning of the war?
— Our time is ending.
— Answer me!
— Look at her one last time before she dies.
Arthur felt the entire world narrow.
Mia.
The leg.
The distance.
The impossibility.
— No.
The silhouette stood motionless.
— Arthur.
— Then make me move.
— I cannot.
— DO SOMETHING!
— The most I can do is this.
The golden light around the silhouette flickered for a second.
— I do not stop time. I slow it until it becomes nearly motionless to your perception. That allows you to see me. It allows me to speak to you. Nothing more.
Arthur tried to move his arm again.
Pain.
An absurd pain.
Not from movement.
From the attempt.
As though his muscles had received an impossible command and nearly tore themselves apart trying to obey.
— It is useless, — said the silhouette. — Time around you is too slow. Your body cannot cross this pressure. Not even you should be capable of it.
Arthur gritted his teeth.
— I won't watch her die.
— You have no choice.
Blue energy pulsed within his eyes.
— I hate when people say that.
Then he forced himself.
Not a large movement.
Not a leap.
Only a finger.
The index finger of the hand gripping the sword trembled.
Barely.
But it trembled.
The silhouette fell silent.
Arthur felt the pain explode through his arm. The muscle fibers seemed to twist from the inside out. His bones groaned like ancient wood under unbearable pressure. Tiny red dots appeared on his skin, frozen in the air before they could even become drops. It felt like trying to move his body inside a mountain.
But the finger moved.
A little.
Then another.
The silhouette took an incomplete step forward.
— That is impossible.
Arthur did not answer.
There was no space left inside him for answers.
His entire being was focused on a single command.
Move.
The blue spread through his arm, not like flame, but like fractures in existence itself. The space around his skin distorted into thin layers, as though his dimensional power was trying to deny the resistance of that slowed time. Even so, every centimeter demanded a price.
Arthur moved his wrist.
Pain shot through his shoulder.
He nearly blacked out.
But Mia was still there.
And that was enough.
— Stop, — said the silhouette, now carrying an urgency Arthur had never heard before. — Your body will not survive this.
Arthur forced his arm again.
The sword slowly began slipping from his fingers.
Not because he released it all at once.
But because releasing it, in that world, was war.
The blade descended slowly, impossibly slowly, spinning through an endless fall while Arthur tried to move his leg. His knee did not obey at first. Then the blue descended through his thigh, ankle, and foot.
His skin split open in thin lines.
The pressure crushed every joint.
Arthur felt as though the bones in his leg were about to separate.
But he moved.
Millimeters.
Then more.
The sword was beneath him now, suspended in slow descent.
Arthur dragged his foot toward it.
The silhouette watched.
Unable to stop him.
Unable to believe it.
— How… are you doing this?
Arthur did not know.
He did not care.
He only knew Mia was about to die.
And that was unacceptable.
His foot touched the side of the sword.
The pain hit so violently that his vision turned white.
He pushed.
Not like a kick.
Like rupture.
His foot pressed against the blade while his body hurled itself forward, using that impossible impulse against the prison of time. The sword spun backward, dragging behind it a blue line that tore through the frozen air.
Arthur felt his entire body scream.
Muscles.
Bones.
Blood.
Mana.
Everything felt moments away from tearing apart.
But he advanced.
The golden silhouette vanished behind him in unstable particles.
And then time returned.
All at once.
Sound exploded back into existence.
The wind roared.
Dust burst outward.
Stones fell.
The scream trapped inside the world returned at the same time.
The sword Arthur had launched crossed the distance like a blue lightning bolt and struck the leg descending toward Ayame.
BOOOOM.
The blade collided against the arachnid structure with monstrous force. Dimensional energy exploded upon impact, tearing through the Zaraqnil's leg in a blue distortion that ripped away its trajectory and violently hurled it aside.
Ayame was thrown backward by the shockwave.
But the leg did not crush her.
On the other side—
Arthur came forward like a broken arrow.
Without a sword.
Without proper defense.
Only his entire body wrapped in unstable blue lines as he launched himself directly toward the leg descending upon Mia.
Mia's eyes widened.
There was no time to call out.
No time to understand.
Arthur threw himself between her and death.
The Zaraqnil's leg descended.
The impact struck directly against his forehead.
Right over the hidden symbol of the third eye.
For an instant, blue exploded outward.
Arthur felt as though he had been split in half.
And somewhere beneath everything, before the pain swallowed his consciousness, he heard Mia's desperate scream.
— ARTHUR!